Travel chaos in the Maidenhead area 20 Apr 2010

[whole diary]

[adc82140]

I was travelling in the other direction last night- due to leave Slough at 19:10 for Paddington. I was pleasantly surprised having heard the travel news on the radio to find a train ready to depart on plat. 5 at Slough. However i can't undertand the decision to run it all stations to Paddington, including Hanwell and Acton Mainline. Took forever!!!


Then came the signal failure fun this morning!!!

[chemphys]

I was half considering getting the piccadilly line out to Hounslow then a bus to complete my journey from Victoria to West Drayton having been warned by a  text from FGW^▸ (First Great Western) warning of the delays, but in the end went to Paddington anyway as the national rail enquires looked ok (ish) when I checked, aiming to get the 18:57.

Of course that train was cancelled so I got the 19:03 Heathrow Connect to Hayes and then straight onto a bus to West Drayton, which only added about 20 mins door to door in the end. The Heathrow Connect\Bus combination is proving to be a very good plan B when there are train delays. 

This morning was more annoying. Train was late getting to West Drayton (should be 7:06, was about 7:15ish) as the HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train (Inter City class 43 125 units)) were on the relief lines, presumably because of the signalling issues.

The annoying part was after Ealing when we crawled out of Ealing Broadway, then stopped for 10 minutes to be informed by the driver that a freight train had been routed onto the wrong line at Acton Sidings and would have to be shunted onto the correct line before we could continue. He'd been told this would take about 15 mins. Anyway, someone must have changed their mind, as a minute later, and just after I'd texted work to say I'd be even later than planned, off we went.

I guess it makes things more interesting, than just everything running to time. How boring.